Anyways, I arrived at around half eight and Alan Healey said I was late, I wasn't, neither was John Bradford, he arrived 15 minutes after me.
Nobody seemed overly expectant that we'd do well, but we all knew that a peg on the far side (13 to 24) would be better than one on the near side. Saturday's weights showed that p21 won with 75lb and p19 was second with 45lb and the silvers came off peg 18 with 10lb. Everyone else struggled and we hoped we all wouldn't be in that boat.
The draw was done and 3 tickets remained, peg 24, peg 5 and peg 3. I would have chosen them in that order.....I didn't, I was left on peg 3, I think the 1st time I have ever had that peg. Ken Rayner had 8lb of silvers off it on Saturday and boosted his weight to 20lb with not many carp...
For company I had The Gimp on peg 1, trying to catch some perch and odd skimmer methinks.
Steve Burgess was down on the F1's usual favoured peg, peg 5. That peg had silvers form.
Alan Healey was on peg 24, Mark Radford on 21 and Adam Caswell on peg 19 were the ones to watch I thought, though how Adam would fish is always a reference of interest to all....to feed a lot or to feed more than a lot are his choices.
I set up 3 rigs today, a silvers rig, the same as I used last week at Shiplate, 0.3g NG Jordan, 0.14>0.10>b611x size 18. This rig would be for in front at 11.5m at the bottom of the far shelf, here I would feed 2mm expanders and fish a 4mm over the top, mostly feeding a small helping every other drop to start.
This same rig at the same distance off at the 2 o'clock direction where the depth was the same, here groundbait and dead maggots would be the plan of attack....but I never had a bite here so that's enough of that.
A rig for 14m across at varying spots was made up, but other than a couple snags and bits of crap, it was biteless all day.....so no more on that!!
Lastly a rig for meat at 9m off at 11 o'clock direction, feeding tosspots of dead maggot/meat. This same rig was fished over a little more bait down in front of the platform of peg 2 to my left.
The match began and soon enough Alan on peg 24 had a carp, Ross Sewell up on peg 12 hooked and lost one within the opening 15 minutes.
The rest of us struggled for a while and it was 90 minutes before my 1st bite, a small roach took a maggot fished over the expander line, 10 minutes later I had a lengthy fight on the silvers kit, only to net a 4lb common.....I didn't half hang on!!!
Everyone was struggling, but rumour had it that Steve O'Toole was catching a few, as was Alan, but the rest of us properly struggled along.
Steve Burgess had landed a skimmer and a couple roach on his short line at around 1pm and Steve Wynne had 3 or 4 bites all day!!
Adam Caswell was doing his usual business of hooking and losing fish, foul hooked of course, but he had landed a few nice silvers, ide, skimmers and tench, plus an F1.
Mark Radford had landed some decent carp but lost a good few.......
2pm came and I had a little crucian on expander then a skimmer on the meat line, before bumping off another decent skimmer, again on meat. Lee Waller and Steve O'Toole wandered around and said that peeps were struggling....though Steve was admitting to several carp!!
A look down by peg 2 saw a couple knocks, line bites I thought, so re-fed and went back on the meat down the middle line...I spent the last 90 minutes here, 75 minutes went fishless
With 15 or 20 minutes left I had a ghostie, then a common then another ghostie, all from the meat line. All like peas in a pod of about 4lb apiece. I did pull out of a couple I hooked down by peg 2, maybe foul hooked but not too sure. I was also getting some line bites and knocks....all too late in the day to make any damage on the leaderboard.
The all-out was called and I finished with 4 carp, 1 skimmer, 1 roach and a crucian.. Maybe 17 or 18lb.
I packed my kit away and myself and Mr Bradford began the weigh in, he had 5lb 8oz of silvers, then I weighed in 3lb of silvers while my 4 carp added another 17lb to my total.
Mr Burgess had just under 5lb, similarly Steve Wynne, neither had any carp to weigh.
We didn't get to weigh anyone else until we got to Steve O'Toole, he took the lead with 42lb 12oz from peg 15. Two more dnw's until Adam put 10lb+ of silvers on the scales to take the silvers lead and he added some carp to move into 2nd overall with 29lb 8oz.
Mark Radford had 25lb 6oz of carp to go into 3rd, then Chris Gay just scraped double figures before Alan fell just short of Steve O'Toole with 40lb exactly from peg 24.
Back at the car park the results were done:
 |
| Weigh Sheet.... |
1st - Steve O'Toole, 42lb 12oz peg 15
2nd - Alan Healey, 40lb peg 24
3rd - Adam Caswell, 29lb 8oz peg 19
4th - Mark Radford, 25lb 6oz peg 21
5th - Lee Williams, 20lb peg 3
Silvers:
1st - Adam Caswell, 10lb 6oz peg 19
2nd - John Bradford, 5lb 8oz peg 1
I did manage to pick up last in the money thanks to Adam picking up the silvers pool on the day, but it was bloomin tough for everyone in the main, some peeps only getting half a dozen bites all day.
Next week I am at Viaduct, Campbell and Cary, with the Pawlett crew, Psv are on Lodge lake on the same day, but looking at the results from today's Winter Teams match on the complex it looks like it will be very peggy........
Until then, Take Care.
Lee
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